Coffee
by xBleedingBlackRosex
Summary: Prompt: "Kurt loves the way Blaine stirs his coffee" and "their love of coffee." Why I Love You series: What Blaine and Kurt love about one another.


**For the Why I Love You prompt by ****AweSoMeLAgain: ****_Kurt loves how Blaine stirs his coffee._****And by Cole5148: ****_Their love of coffee._**

**Written during Yelah's soccer game and then at a coffee shop. Ooh, imaginative ;)**

…

Blaine wasn't always a coffee kind of guy.

When he was a kid, he was obsessed with his grandmother's 'special' hot chocolate. He never realized it wasn't actually special – she just claimed it to be for his benefit – until he was in middle school. After that, he grew into something of a tea addict. He drank a cup every morning before school. All sorts, too – chai, Irish breakfast, green, he wasn't picky. His mother kept a drawer full of different teas in the kitchen just for him.

It was only when he met Kurt that he realized just how wonderful coffee could be.

…

Kurt sighed.

"You know, you didn't have to come," Jeff pointed out, chuckling at the brunette's obvious boredom. "I know you'd much rather be at a fashion show or something right now."

"No, no, I want to be here!" Kurt insisted, straightening up, trying to focus on the game before him. He scanned the uniformed players down below. "Um...Which color is us, again?"

Jeff laughed good-naturedly. "We're red. See, Blaine's right there – number eleven." He pointed. Kurt recognized the dark curls, which had broken free from their cage of gel the moment the game had begun.

Nick returned from the concession stand ladened with snacks. "Hey, what'd I miss?"

"The ball went from that side of the field to the other. And then back again," Kurt deadpanned. He squinted down at the players running around the field after the black and white blur. "Hold up, which one's David? I thought you guys said he was on the team, too!"

They both laughed at him again. They had expected this from Kurt the second he'd agreed to accompany them to that evening's soccer game. "David's the goalkeeper," Jeff explained patiently. "He's by the net over there. And Thad is down there on the bench, see? Beside Flint?"

"Seriously, Kurt, have you never been to a game before?" Nick asked, mouth full of nachos. Jeff smacked him lightly on the back of the head for talking while eating. He choked on a chip.

"McKinley's soccer team is pathetic!" Kurt defended. "And I've never exactly been a sports fan – you know that. The only games I ever went to were the football ones."

"But your step-brother's the quarterback, that doesn't count." Nick rolled his eyes, waving around a red vine as if declaring the statement null and void.

Kurt glared. "Yes, that, but also because it was mandatory for all Cheerios."

"I _beg_ your pardon?"

Kurt sighed, knowing exactly what was running through their heads. "Not the _cereal_, you idiots. The Cheerios are McKinley's cheerleading squad. We were required to go to every football game."

Nick did not seem to be aware of the half-eaten food about to fall out of his open mouth. Jeff's jaw had also unhinged, but he quickly pulled himself together again. "You're- You were a _cheerleader_?"

Kurt sat a bit taller in his seat. "Yes. Yes, I was." His tone was challenging, just daring them to mock him for it. "And I was quite good, too, if I do say so myself. Pretty much single-handedly won our squad Nationals last year."

A great cheer went up around them. They immediately returned their attention to the game. Somebody – Kurt could not tell who – had just made a goal for Dalton's team. He clapped along with everyone else.

"So why'd you stop cheerleading?" Jeff asked, seeming genuinely interested. Nick watched him, waiting for the answer as well, half a red vine dangling out of his mouth as he chewed.

"Dalton is severely lacking in the cheerleading department," Kurt reminded with a chuckle. Dalton, in fact, did not even _have_ a cheer squad. Jeff laughed, too, and let it go. The three of them fell into a comfortable silence. It took a bit of patient explaining, but by the time the first half ended, Kurt was able to somewhat follow the game. From what he could tell – and from what Nick and Jeff said - David and Blaine were both quite good. David managed to block all but one of the balls that attempted to get passed him into the goal, and Blaine was small and quick enough to tease the ball away from an opponent and dark off with it before they could steal it back.

The whistle blew for halftime.

"What a game!" Nick breathed excitedly. The food had long since disappeared, and Kurt could see him itching to go get some more snacks._ This boy must have an amazing metabolism._

"Seriously," Jeff agreed. "We haven't seen a game this intense since December!"

"The one where Cameron sprained his ankle and Flint dislocated his knee all within the first twenty minutes?"

"Yeah, that one!"

"That was incredible. We totally should have won that one. I think it was rigged..."

"Lost by _one_ point!"

Kurt shook his head, amused by his friends' ranting. He noticed Blaine down on the sidelines, scanning the audience. He waved. Blaine spotted him, grinned, and waved back. David glanced in his direction and nudged Blaine in the ribs and said something to him. Blaine shoved him back. They both laughed.

David returned to the goal for the second half, but Blaine sat out this time. Kurt found his eyes wandering to the back of those brown curls on more than one occasion. The game suddenly seemed noticeably less interesting. _Stop it_, he chastised himself. _He's your best friend. Nothing more. You're just here to support your _friends_. That's all._

Another loud wave of noise rippled through the stands. This time it was a groan.

"What? What happened?" he demanded.

"The other team just scored another goal," Jeff informed him through gritted teeth. Nick looked about ready to strangle something.

"Doesn't that mean we're tied now?"

"Yeah."

Kurt leaned forward to peer passed Jeff to the scoreboard. There was only five minutes left in the game. The audience was on the edge of their seats, watching anxiously. If Dalton won this game, the team would be able to move on. If they lost, it would mean the end of the season for them that year. That was the main reason Kurt had agreed to attend. It was an important game; he didn't want to miss it. Not when he knew how much it meant to Blaine.

And then, seemingly out of nowhere, the coach called for a substitution, switching out Flint for Blaine. Kurt sat up a little straighter. Nick and Jeff pretended not to notice. Kurt didn't know much about soccer, but he wasn't sure changing players with only a few minutes left in the game would really help all that much. Still, he trusted that the coach knew what he was doing.

"Oh, this is gonna be good," Jeff smirked. "Blaine's managed to pull some pretty epic stunts out of his ass in a time crunch. Coach is probably hoping that'll happen again."

"There was this one time when he literally dove between a dude's legs to get the ball! Oh god, you should have seen the other guys' faces! It was priceless!"

The next few minutes were intense. The ball went back and forth, back and forth, never getting close enough to the goal for the keeper to get involved, but always close enough to keep the spectators watching with bated breath. Kurt could feel the tension in the stands; it was infectious. He didn't even care much for soccer, but he found himself cheering and yelling and clapping and groaning along with everybody else.

"Only a minute left!" Jeff shouted above the noise.

"Shoot, Blaine!" Nick urged. "Shoot already! You've got a perfect-!"

He broke off as everyone either gasped or moaned. Kurt clapped his hands over his mouth to stifle his cry. Blaine had been about to kick a clear shot into the goal when an opposing player slide-tackled him from behind, knocking him clear off his feet. He went down hard. The whistle blew. A yellow card was given, although Jeff and Nick insisted that it should have been red. Kurt hardly heard them. Blaine did not pop right back up like he expected him to. And that scared him.

"Is he alright?" he demanded. He had to fight the urge to race onto the field himself and check.

"I can't tell." Jeff, being the tallest of the three, craned his neck to see above the standing crowd. "He's definitely conscious, at least...He's talking to Coach. It looks like...It looks like he's holding his wrist. Shit, he must have fallen on it wrong."

"Is it broken, do you think?" pressed Nick.

"No," Jeff said after a moment. "He's- He's standing up now. I think- Yep, he's gonna keep playing!"

The spectators applauded and settled back down. Kurt watched worriedly as Blaine jogged backwards to what Jeff explained was the penalty kick point. He was allowed a free kick, due to the illegal slide-tackle from the opposite team. There was less than a minute left in the game. This would be the deciding factor.

There was dead silence as the ball was set up. Blaine – who had been clutching his left wrist, clearly in pain – dropped his arms to his side and focused. The keeper was shifting around in the goal, yelling things at Blaine that Kurt could not hear up in the stands. He doubted they were very nice.

And then Blaine moved. The ball flew through the air, powered right passed the goalie's outstretched fingertips, and bounced off the back of the net.

The cheers were positively deafening.

"We won! We won! Oh my god, we won!" Jeff shrieked over and over again, jumping up and down at his seat.

"That's our boy!" Nick cried beside him. He grabbed Jeff's hand and together they joined the stream of people spilling out onto the field. Kurt stayed back, though. He was scared that if he got within arms' reach of Blaine he would do something extraordinarily stupid like kiss him.

But that didn't stop him from waiting outside the locker room, long after everybody else had left, waiting for Blaine to emerge.

"You were incredible!" he blurted the moment the soccer star emerged. He was dressed in jeans and an old t-shirt, his wild curls once more subdued under mounds of product. His wrist was wrapped in gauze, and he was holding an ice pack to it.

"Thanks," he grinned. Kurt was glad to see that he wasn't in too much pain; the smile seemed genuine. Or perhaps it was just the adrenaline of the game that was temporarily blocking the extent of the pain. "It means a lot to me that you came to watch...I know soccer isn't really your thing."

"No, I enjoyed it!" Kurt assured, smiling. They began to wander towards the parking lot. "Although I must admit, I didn't expect it to be so _violent_!"

Blaine laughed. "Don't worry, it's usually not. This doesn't happen often, I promise." He indicated his wrist.

"Is it broken?"

"Nah, just a sprain. Probably won't even get a cool cast for everyone to sign."

Kurt rolled his eyes. "Well, if you're up to it, we can go grab some coffee and you can explain just _what_ went down tonight, because I'll be honest, I probably only followed about _half_ of that game."

Blaine beamed up at him. "Sounds great!"

…

Kurt drove them to Lima Bean, his favorite coffeehouse. They walked in, ordered their drinks of choice – for Kurt, a grande nonfat mocha, for Blaine, a white chocolate latte – and found a small table in the corner. All the while, Blaine was describing different rules and strategies in soccer, and recalling a few of the more memorable games he'd played. Kurt insisted on carrying his coffee for him so that he wouldn't have to use his bad wrist.

"Have you been hurt before?" Kurt asked.

"Few times, yeah," nodded Blaine. He dropped the ice pack into his soccer bag before pulling his drink closer. "Dislocated my shoulder once...Broke a couple fingers. Nothing too bad." He took a sip of his latte. "Let's talk about something else, though. I'm sure all this soccer stuff is pretty boring for you."

"You drink coffee really adorably."

It was out of his mouth before Kurt could stop it.

"I- What?" Blaine spluttered, choking on his mouthful of latte, a wide, amused grin spreading across his face. _Did I hear that right?_

Kurt shrugged, hoping it looked offhanded. "You said to talk about something else. This is something else! You drink coffee as if it's a rare luxury or something..."

Blaine chuckled, a little embarrassed. "Actually, to be honest, I haven't had coffee in over two years..."

Kurt's jaw hit the table.

"You-...You're _kidding_ me!" he gasped, acting as if Blaine had just told him he was allergic to air. "For two years? Seriously? I drink coffee _all the time_, it's like my drug! I don't know how I could function without it."

Blaine laughed again. "I mean, I drink tea a lot, but...I don't know, I just never really saw the appeal."

Kurt shook his head solemnly. "I don't think we can be friends anymore." He smirked to show that he was just joking. Blaine grinned back. "I'm serious, Blaine, you're missing out on one of the greatest joys of life! In fact- Hold on. I'll be right back."

Blaine watched curiously as Kurt approached the counter again and ordered something. He paid and came back a couple minutes later with another drink in hand, which he promptly set in front of Blaine.

"Try it."

"What is it?"

"Just try it. If you don't like it, you don't ever have to drink coffee again."

Blaine raised an amused eyebrow but obediently took a sip of the mysterious new beverage. His eyes went wide. Kurt smiled proudly, arms folded, looking triumphant.

"Oh my god, what-?"

"Medium drip," Kurt answered. "I know my coffees, Blaine. Everyone has a preference. Mine is a nonfat mocha; Finn's is a plain coffee with extra sugar; Mercedes's is a blended frappuccino, extra cream; and yours, Blaine, is that."

He stirred it around in his cup for a moment before taking another long gulp. Kurt tried not to watch his throat as he swallowed. "This is- You- I mean- Wow!" Blaine tried to express in words how impressed he was but failed dismally. Kurt just laughed.

"No need to praise me," he said. "Lucky guess. I'm sure we'll be coming here far more often now. Honestly, I'm surprised I didn't convert you sooner!"

"Same," Blaine agreed, still drinking his new drink as if having just discovered the cure to cancer in liquid form. "If I'd known about this sooner I would have taken you here every day since you transferred!"

"Taken me?" Kurt couldn't help but echo.

Blaine paused. "I- I mean...You know, as friends."

Kurt tried not to let his disappointment show. "Right. Of course. As friends."

Neither of them let on that they were both mentally kicking themselves as they sat there in silence and drank their celebratory coffee.

…

**Coffee heals everything, including sprained wrists. SHUT UP IT'S TRUE DON'T BURST MY BUBBLE LA LA LA LA!**

**Yelah originally wanted to break Blaine's spinal chord. It took her a second to realize why that couldn't work. Also, big thanks goes to her for the soccer help! I know absolutely ****_nothing_**** about sports of any kind. Except jump rope. I'm a pro at that. Also, she wants me to tell you that "These napkins are hard. Don't blow your nose on them."**

**Kisses,**

**~Ripple**


End file.
